I Know Dino: The Big Dinosaur Podcast

The dentary (jaw) of the new titanosaur Baalsaurus compared to its close relative Bonitasaura. The numbers indicate tooth positions. In life there would be another half to the jaw as a mirror image connected near the 13th tooth position. From http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/0001-3765201820180661

The game Jurassic World Evolution has a new update, with three new dinosaurs you can have in your park source

Jurassic World 3 will feature dinosaurs as more of an invasive species than Godzilla-like city-destroyers source

The dinosaur of the day: Qantassaurus

Ornithopod that lived in the Cretaceous in what is now Australia (when it was south of the Antarctic Circle)

Bipedal and herbivorous

Lower jaw had ten teeth

Based on relatives, would have had short thighs and long shins, and been a fast runner

Probably ran away from predators, similar to a gazelle

Had claws on feet, and a long tail stiffened by ossified tendons (helped with turning)

About 6 ft (1.8 m) long

Probably had a beak, and leaf-shaped teeth in the back

Browser, probably ate ferns and other vegetation using its hands

May have travelled in herds or flocks

Lived in a polar region

Probably lived in cold temperatures (21 to 37°F, or -6 to 5 °C), and coldest during polar nights, which lasted up to 3 months

Probably adapted to survive the cold

Relatives were active throughout the year (no hibernation)

Dinosaur burrows, of possibly small ornithopods, have been found along the southern Victorian coast (could be Qantassaurus?)

Found in 1996, as part of the Dinosaur Dreaming project (run by Monash University and the National Museum of Victoria)

Found by Nicole Evered

Described in 1999 by Patricia Vickers-Rich and Tom Rich (found near Inverloch)

Only jaw fragments are known (based on the jaw fragments, probably had a short, stubby face)

Holotype is of the left dentary of the lower jaw, with ten teeth

Two other jaws have been referred to Qantassaurus (found in the same year, same site)

Patricia said “the jaw is unique because it is short and stocky, whereas other jaws…are long and slender”

Type species is Qantassaurus intrepidus

Named after Qantas, the Australian airline, because it shipped fossils around Australia as part of the Great Russian Dinosaurs Exhibit between 1993 and 1996, and sponsored expeditions to South America and eastern Europe

Name means “Qantas lizard”

Species name means “intrepid” in Latin (refers to the harsh climate it lived in)

May be up to six types of small ornithopods that lived in the Cretaceous in Australia, but only known from fragments

Relatives include Atlascopcosaurus, Leaellynasaura

First Victorian ornithopods were categorized as Hypsilophodontidae, based on similarities in the skull and tooth structure to hypsilophodontids found in Europe (but now thought to be a wastebasket taxon, so undergoing revision)

Fun Fact: We covered 42 new dinosaur species (so far) that were named this year.

Sponsors:

This episode is brought to you in part by TRX Dinosaurs, which makes beautiful and realistic dinosaur sculptures, puppets, and animatronics. You can see some amazing examples and works in progress on Instagram @trxdinosaurs

And by Indiana University Press. Their Life of the Past series is lavishly illustrated and meticulously documented to showcase the latest findings and most compelling interpretations in the ever-changing field of paleontology. Find their books at iupress.indiana.edu

There’s a new series for CBBC, called Deadly Dinosaurs demonstrating the power of dinosaurs source

Mashable published a video of the puppeteers who worked on the dinosaurs in Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom source

Speculation about Jurassic World 3 includes the idea that there may be dinosaurs in space source

The dinosaur of the day: Dracorex

It’s a Controversial dinosaur

In 2009, Goodwin and Horner said that Dracorex was a juvenile Pachycephalosaurus, and Stygimoloch was in between an adult and juvenile (Pachycephalosaurus was the adult), based on the fact that they had relatively similar skulls

Talked about Pachycephalosaurus in episode 93, Stygimoloch in episode 176

Goodwin and Horner suggested that the dinosaur grew and changed shape as it aged

Dracorex was half grown, Stgyimoloch was 3/4 grown

Described in 2006 by Bob Bakker and Robert Sullivan and others

According to Bob Bakker, Stygimoloch is different because of its huge spike cluster (with three enlarged spikes), Dracorex has a shorter, four spike arrangement on its head, and that the two had different sized and shaped skulls

Pachycephalosaurus has a broad, rounded dome, compared to Stygimoloch that had a narrow dome and larger horns

Did not have a dome on its head but instead had knobs around two big holes

Also had horns that were shorter than Stygimoloch

Skull also had bumps and had a long snout and was flat

Also lots of osteoderms (nodes, larger hornlets, and spikes)

Skull has two large holes (fenestrae)

In an interview, Bob Bakker said he was thrilled with the idea when he first heard it. No other modern species has done that kind of transformation. Horner’s proposal is that the horns grow out of the back of the head as a juvenile, and then reverses and reduces as it reaches maturity, then the horns disappeared and the flat forehead grew upword and became a solid dome of bone, and large openings in the skull would close quickly. However, Bakker said he’d studied horn and dome growth in modern animals (muskoxen ,giraffes, African Water Buffalo, and none of them have any kind of reverse horn development as described for Pachycephalosaurus. Also Triceratops skulls change over time, but the horns start small and grow larger, not the other way around. Bakker also said he had a genuine juvenile Pachycelphalosaurus skull, about 2/3 the length of an adult, and the skull had “a shape that’s 95% like the adult stage.”

“The horns are small. The temporal holes are gone. And the dome is huge and dome development has distorted the neighboring bones above the eye. This juvie Pachycephalosaurus is just as small as the Dracorex skull at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum. But the juvenile Pachycephalosaurus had already acquired the definitive Pachycepahlosaurus head structure – it doesn’t look anything like a Dracorex. We have new Stygimoloch skulls too, the same size as the Dracorex. These stygi skulls are not intermediate is shape. They have a small dome and large horns – the diagnostic Stygimoloch cranial configuration. So……..though electrifying in its novelty, Jack’s theory simply doesn’t work. Pachycephalosaur dinosaurs did grow like Triceratops – or like muskoxen. Bumps and horns simply got bigger and thicker all through life. There was no sudden, dramatic growth reversal. By the time an individual pachy had achieved half-grown size, its dome and horns were taking on the shape that was very close to what the adult would have.”

Nick Longrich and others said in 2010 that all flat-skulled pachycephalosaurs were juveniles

First flat-headed pachycephalosaur found in North America

Bakker said, “Dracorex is a scientifically significant milestone in the world of paleontology; it proves that family trees were still branching off and evolving, even near the end of the age of dinosaurs. It demonstrated a world of color and movement in nature more recently than we ever thought possible.”

Looks very dragon like

About 9.8 ft (3 m) long

Herbivorous

Part of the family Pachycephalosauridae

Most similar to Stygimoloch and somewhat similar to Pachycephalosaurus

Skull is similar to the modern animal Giant Forest Hog (Hylochoerus meinertzhageni), both have similar length skulls, and long snouts/muzzles. Giant Forest Hogs shove with their skulls and ram each other. They have powerful, flexible neck muscles and can lift opponents off the ground. As the fight escalates, they run into each other and ram their flat skulls together, sometimes fracturing bones

Dracorex may have pressed heads together and pushed, and the knobs and ridges on the skull may have helped hold the skulls together to prevent slipping

Also the spikes at the back of the head could inflict fatal wounds on the flank. Oryx (modern antelope) use their backward facing horns to kill predators, so Dracorex and Stygimoloch may have done something similar

Dracorex was found by Steve and Pat Saulsbury (brothers) and Brian Buckmeier, from Sioux City, Iowa, while on a fossil collecting trip. They donated the skull to the Children’s Museum in Indianapolis in late 2004 so it could be studied

Found one nearly complete skull, and four neck vertebrae

Type species is Dracorex hogwartsia

Name means “dragon king of Hogwarts”

Bob Bakker and others named it, and let J. K. Rowling know (in a video with Bob Bakker, he said she was a fan of the name)

“the species named in honor of her contribution tochildren’s education and the joy of exploration” (Bakker said the name Hogwarts came to him as soon as he saw the skull)

Rowling said, “The naming of Dracorex hogwartsia is easily the most unexpected honor to have come my way since the publication of the Harry Potter books! I am absolutely thrilled to think that Hogwarts has made a small claw mark upon the fascinating world of dinosaurs. I happen to know more on the subject of paleontology than many might credit, because my eldest daughter was Utahraptor-obsessed, and I am now living with a passionate Tyrannosaurus rex-lover, aged three. My credibility has soared within my science-loving family, and I am very much looking forward to reading Dr. Bakker and his colleague’s paper describing “my” dinosaur, which I can’t help visualizing as a slightly less pyromaniac Hungarian Horntail.”

Bakker and others since have found 4 Dracorex specimens

Lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now North America

Fun Fact:

We may be able to determine new details about dinosaur eyesight and their behavior with well-preserved sclerotic rings (actual bones in the cornea that support the eye) and a preserved orbit (the eyesocket).

Sponsors:

This episode is brought to you in part by TRX Dinosaurs, which makes beautiful and realistic dinosaur sculptures, puppets, and animatronics. You can see some amazing examples and works in progress on Instagram @trxdinosaurs

In our 189th episode we got to speak with Glen McIntosh who has been working at Industrial Light & Magic since 1998, and has worked on a number of films, including Star Wars: Episodes 1-3, E.T., and Jurassic Park III, Jurassic World, and Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom. You can see him briefly in a making of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdomhere telling Chris Pratt that the dinosaurs will be “even better” in Fallen Kingdom.

Episode 189 also features Lamaceratops, a small—possibly dubious—ceratopsian from Mongolia.

Thank you! Thank you to all our patrons! Your support means so much to us and keeps us going! If you’re a dinosaur enthusiast, join our growing community on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/iknowdino.

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The Lapworth Museum of Geology has a new exhibition from called “Drawing out the Dinosaurs” featuring two centuries of art and media

Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri, has an exhibit from now until January 6, called “Dinosaurs Revealed.” with 26 life-sized animatronic dinosaurs

North Pioneer College in northeastern Arizona will be offering a new paleontology course this fall, all about Dinosaurs

This clip shows many of the Jurassic Park characters, including the dinosaurs, wearing high heels

Already have speculations on what Jurassic World 3 will be like, including dinosaurs taking over the entire world

The dinosaur of the day Lamaceratops

Ceratopsian that lived in the Late Cretaceous ~85MYO in what is now Mongolia

Probably small like other mongolian ceratopsians

Name means “Lama horned face”

Found in the Nemegt Valley, found a partial skull and lower jaw

Named in 2003 by V. R. Alifanov

Type species is Lamaceratops tereschenkoi

Herbivorous

Not enough fossils to know how big it was, but we may be able to guess based on Bagaceratops

Bagaceratops was roughly the size of a medium sized dog about 1m (3ft) long & under 100lbs

Not everyone thinks Lamaceratops is a valid genus, and some think the fossils found could be referred to Bagaceratops (since the fossils for both are very similar), though Lamaceratops could also be a new species of Bagaceratops

Talk about Bagaceratops in episode 72 (small, probably cute dinosaur)

Part of the family Bagaceratopsidae, a group of dinosaurs with parrot-like beaks that lived in the Cretaceous in what is now Asia

Fun Fact:

Some dinosaur fossils are radioactive.

This episode was brought to you by:

TRX Dinosaurs, which makes beautiful and realistic dinosaur sculptures, puppets, and exhibits. You can see some amazing examples and works in progress on Instagram @trxdinosaurs.

In our 171st episode, we got to chat with Sabre Moore, director at Carter County Museum in Ekalaka, Montana. Since starting work at Carter County Museum, Sabre has expanded the museum, worked with other museums for outreach, and established the annual Dino Shindig. Follow her on Twitter @Sabre_Moore and Carter County Museum on Facebook and Twitter.

Episode 171 is also about Bactrosaurus, a hadrosauroid whose name means “club lizard.”

Thank you so much to all our patrons! Your support means so much to us and keeps us going! If you’re a dinosaur enthusiast, join our growing community on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/iknowdino.

You can listen to our free podcast, with all our episodes, on iTunes at: